Selfbooting CDI stuck on SEGA screen/Won't boot

[TheXboxArcade]

(I'm new to making CDI files so apologies if I'm doing anything wrong.) Anyway, I've been attempting to make a CDI of Sonic Adventure 2 The Trial to eventually burn to a CD-R and run on my Dreamcast, since it appears that no one else has from my digging online.

Only issue is, whenever I make the CDI file with Bootmake and test it with Demul, it either stops and hangs on the SEGA screen (not in game, but the "Produced or under license" screen) and goes gray after a while or gets to SEGA screen, fades out to white and reloads back to the main menu.

Does anyone know what would be causing this and how to fix it? I've tried multiple methods (including the guide on the site here as well as other people's suggestions for different methods and such) but haven't had any luck with it. Thanks in advance.

[SMiTH]

read this post:

https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 03#p172211

there are tons of selfboot tools in the first post of thread too.

[TheXboxArcade]

read this post:

https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 03#p172211

there are tons of selfboot tools in the first post of thread too.

I didn't see this before, thanks for sharing! I've been testing the programs on that list and found LazyBoot works best, but even with the fixes mentioned below the first post in the post you sent, it seems like it still doesn't want to boot, though I did get it to cut to the black screen past the SEGA screen, where it seems to hang (possibly because of the file system differences I mention below?).

I have noticed though that in the GDI dump of the demo, it has the 1ST_READ.BIN in the game's folders and IP.BIN in the root folder, while mine has both 1ST_READ.BIN and IP.BIN in the root folder. I also tested the retail version of SA2 using DCRES's single disc rip and it works perfectly fine, as well as the Rip Database for SA2 to see if any of the hex values that needed changing were in The Trial's 1ST_READ.BIN but none are.

Any ideas on why it doesn't work?

[SMiTH]

edit lba for all of the bins you can find that have cd00 in hex.
binhack ip bin and 1st read.
try 11702 lba, try 45000 lba, try data/data (nfl2k1)

if it still doesn't boot, try the patches listed in the thread.
after that if it fails to boot there are protections that need to be patched.
if it comes down to this, contact megavolt, or yzb.

[MoeFoh]

Lazyboot has special detection for SA2 and if found copies over a new IP.BIN & 1ST_READ.BIN. So, I'm not surprised you couldn't find a CDI of SA2 The Trial, as nobody has probably made one, since additional hacking beyond what's normal may be needed to get it to run.

[TheXboxArcade]

edit lba for all of the bins you can find that have cd00 in hex.
binhack ip bin and 1st read.
try 11702 lba, try 45000 lba, try data/data (nfl2k1)

if it still doesn't boot, try the patches listed in the thread.
after that if it fails to boot there are protections that need to be patched.
if it comes down to this, contact megavolt, or yzb.

Thank you for your help, I REALLY appreciate it, I seriously can't thank you enough! Turns out all I had to do was just dump all the game files into the root data folder in LazyBoot (so that IP.BIN and 1ST_READ.BIN were in the same folder as the other game files) and it seems to work now.


Note for anyone wanting to make a CDI version of SA2 The Trial themselves: I attempted to make the CDI file again today to fix the name of the CDI and noticed that somewhere along the line I changed "10 32 0D 8B" at hex 000941F0 to "08 00 0D 8B" in 1ST_READ.BIN, if you don't do this the game won't boot.

[SMiTH]

Note for anyone wanting to make a CDI version of SA2 The Trial themselves: I attempted to make the CDI file again today to fix the name of the CDI and noticed that somewhere along the line I changed "10 32 0D 8B" at hex 000941F0 to "08 00 0D 8B" in 1ST_READ.BIN, if you don't do this the game won't boot.

These are common in many dreamcast games.
The link that I posted earlier in thread has a section about them.

Here:

If a game doesn't boot try any of these edits to the main bin:

Code: Select all

Find CD E4 43 6A Change TO 09 00 09 00

Find 10 32 0D 8B Change TO 08 00 0D 8B

Find 5E B0 00 00 Change TO 96 00 00 00

More from the link posted earlier in thread...

More than likely when you edit the lba of all of the bins (cd00 edit) every bin you find cd00 (yes, every bin that has cd00), and then binhack the main.bin (1st_read most of the time) you will get games to work.

If they don't try these patches to main bins (1st_read most of the time)

Find CD E4 43 6A Change TO 09 00 09 00

Find 10 32 0D 8B Change TO 08 00 0D 8B

Find 5E B0 00 00 Change TO 96 00 00 00

If it fails to boot after you patched main bin, try 45000 lba.
Some games will not boot at 11702 lba.

If it fails to boot after trying 45000 lba, then there are more protections in main bin or something else.

!! WINCE games, need to use bincon.

[MoeFoh]

Yep, I can verify Lazyboot along with this patch on 1ST_READ.BIN will make a working CDI (Thanks SMiTH):
Offset: 0941F0: change "10 32 0D 8B" to "08 00 0D 8B"

Lazyboot uses hack4.exe & binhack32.exe to do the bin patching, but it turns out hack4.exe isn't programmed to make the above change.

Anyway, I made of CDI without padding to test out with emulators:
Sonic Adventure 2 - The Trial (EUROPE)(EN,JA)[CDI]
Download here: https://www.mediafire.com/file_premium/ ... 5D.7z/file

Shrunk GDI to test here:
https://www.mediafire.com/file_premium/ ... 5D.7z/file

Game info: https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Sonic_Adv ... _The_Trial